Online Learning Update

by Vinay Umarji, Business Standard

With companies increasingly looking at developing leaders from within the cadres and opting for cost-effective avenues for the same, the executive education market in the country has seen introduction of longer duration online programmes which are finding many takers. Currently offered by the likes of Harvard, Wharton, MIT Sloan, and INSEAD, online programmes are finding interest among the IIMs who are mulling over starting the same too. Online programmes help companies look at long-duration learning journeys for mid- and top-level management personnel, as opposed to 3-4 days short duration classroom programmes.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/management/executive-education-moves-out-of-classrooms-as-online-gains-traction-116100800288_1.html

by the National

It ought to be stated, of course, that there is nothing inherently wrong with these modern forms of communication, just as there was nothing inherently wrong with having pen pals in earlier times. These online platforms have a powerful ability to improve the way we keep in touch and free us from the geographic and social constraints that once applied. The outcomes of these new horizons merely reflect those of the users, who range from the naively honourable to the cynically criminal. The reality is that despite these groundbreaking new apps, young people will sometimes act foolishly and without thinking of the future. As the grey-haired among us can attest, there is nothing new in this phenomenon. What has changed is that content posted online can be copied endlessly and will persist for years into the future. Young people, of course, need to act prudently online, as in any realm of life.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/editorial/pitfalls-amid-the-online-benefits

by Science Daily

New research has demonstrated that a nanoscale device, called a memristor, could be used to power artificial systems that can mimic the human brain. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) exhibit learning abilities and can perform tasks which are difficult for conventional computing systems, such as pattern recognition, on-line learning and classification. Practical ANN implementations are currently hampered by the lack of efficient hardware synapses; a key component that every ANN requires in large numbers.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161007084748.htm

by Timothy B. Lee, Vox

Andreessen: Udacity is growing very fast and doing very well, and has locked in on this concept of nanodegrees…. The big new course they have teaches how to design and code and build a self-driving car. Think about that. In 2005, a self-driving car was a DARPA grand challenge. In 2010 it was 1,500 people at Google doing this dark science thing that nobody understood from the outside. Now you can literally sign up on Udacity and take an online course to learn how to build a self-driving car and go work for Google or Uber or Tesla or any of these other companies. I think it’s pretty significant, number one that that’s happening, in terms of how fast it’s happening. But it’s also significant that it’s happening on Udacity and not at Harvard, or for that matter your local community college. Udacity is a software company. It has software-scale economics. As they refine their model, their ability to scale is present in the model. They’re not there yet, but they are scaling quite quickly now.

http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/10/6/13092272/marc-andreessen-education-disruption

by Jordan Friedman, US News

For students considering a credential – or even an affordable online degree – from a respectable university, a MOOC-based option might be the way to go. After piloting the concept at MIT this year, edX announced partnerships with 14 additional universities around the world last month for 19 new MicroMasters programs exploring in-demand fields ranging from artificial intelligence to entrepreneurship. Students earn a MicroMasters by completing the equivalent of a quarter’s to a semester’s worth of a master’s degree, usually through four to five MOOCs and a capstone component, says Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX. They can then apply to finish the curriculum at the school in person and earn the graduate degree. Because the MicroMasters are “stackable” in nature, students can learn as much or little as they want, Agarwal says

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2016-10-06/mooc-based-credential-options-expand-in-online-education

by Geoff Colvin, Fortune

Many CEOs tell me their greatest fear is being blindsided by a competitor they never even thought of as a competitor, threatening to make the CEO’s business irrelevant by using technology and a business model the CEO hadn’t imagined. That’s why I urge you to read Roger Parloff’s new cover story on deep learning, how it’s changing our lives, and how, as he says, it “will soon transform corporate America,” and business globally for that matter. We’ve all been reading a lot about artificial intelligence (AI), but we now must understand finer distinctions. Within AI is a set of techniques called machine learning, enabling computers to get better at tasks with practice. And within machine learning is deep learning, involving algorithms by which computers train themselves using multi-layered neural networks and vast quantities of data. If you don’t really understand that, you’d better read the article.

http://fortune.com/2016/10/05/ai-artificial-intelligence-deep-learning-employers/

By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

Arizona State University Professor Jeff Selingo writes in the Washington Post a brief history of the rise of online learning, which was transformed by the entry of elite colleges and universities into distance learning space in the early 2000’s with massive open online courses. Today, institutions like Georgia Tech are offering competitive degrees for low-costs through distance learning modules and showcasing the future of higher education, which likely will not replace the traditional campus create a new market need for a broader student population. A recent study reveals that 23% of all college graduates have taken at least one online course, while the number for recent graduates increases to 46%.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/traditional-universities-transformed-online-learning-but-can-it-replace-th/427642/

by Kelsie Clifton, Mesa Journal

The truth is that some students just work better learning it by themselves and in their own environment. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like to do things hands on but the idea of sitting in a classroom for a long amount of times gives me anxiety, bad. I want to be able to do my assigned reading, listen to the lecture, do the work, turn it in, and go on about my life. Whatever that may be. Over the time of me being an online student here at UTPB I have noticed some great advantages that I love.

http://mesajournalnews.com/3306/news/taking-online-courses-the-pajama-advantage/

by Meghan Brown, Engineering.com

A new massive open online course (MOOC) being offered by CalTech and Delft University aims to help engineers, scientists and cybersecurity researchers prepare for the future of quantum computing, and its associated security needs with a course on Quantum Cryptography. The MOOC will focus on the ways in which the principles of quantum mechanics can be harnessed to create secure lines of communication. Students will learn how to take advantage of quantum effects such as entanglement and uncertainty to create and apply cryptographic tasks that can provide levels of security beyond the reach of classical cryptography. This type of digital security will become even more necessary as the digitization of our products, our services and our data continues to increase in complexity, and as quantum computing becomes more of a reality.

http://www.engineering.com/Education/EducationArticles/ArticleID/13284/Is-Quantum-Cryptography-the-Future-of-Cybersecurity.aspx

By Jeffrey J. Selingo, Washington Post

A study released this month from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government found that students who enrolled in Georgia Tech’s $7,000 online master’s degree in computer science would not have gone anywhere else if the program didn’t exist. By “satisfying large, previously unmet demand for mid-career training, this single program will boost annual production of American computer science master’s degrees by 8 percent,” the Harvard researchers concluded. According to Pew, 23 percent of college graduates have taken an online course; among recent graduates that proportion rises to 46 percent. Online education won’t replace traditional undergraduate residential colleges, nor is it likely to replace face-to-face graduate education any time soon. But as the experiences of dozens of institutions have shown in recent years, virtual courses don’t need to totally disrupt traditional degrees to have a significant impact on the future of higher education.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/10/04/after-gaining-legitimacy-can-online-higher-education-replace-traditional-college/

by FIONA MACDONALD, Science Alert

We all know that knowing how to code is a crucial skill for pretty much anyone wanting to impress the job market or start their own business in 2016. But it can be hard – not to mention expensive – to find the time to learn the latest programming languages if you’re also studying or working full-time. But don’t worry, we’ve partnered with StackCommerce to bring you four of their top-rated online programming and coding courses via our new ScienceAlert Academy. And the best part is you can take them all right now from the comfort of your couch – without spending more than US$50 per course.

http://www.sciencealert.com/4-awesome-programming-courses-you-can-take-online-now

by TANYA ROSCORLA, Center for Digital Education

On Aug. 30, Rebecca B. Bond, the chief of the disability rights section of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, sent a 10-page letter to Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks and campus counsel representatives that laid out the conclusion of a Title II Americans with Disability Act investigation. In October 2014 the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of the National Association of the Deaf. This complaint said deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals could not access UC Berkeley’s audio and video content that is available to the public online at no cost. Title II of the act prohibits public entities including colleges and universities from excluding or denying the benefit of their programs, goods or services to people with disabilities. The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Education Department both have authority to enforce this law through their civil rights’ divisions, and they have filed at least 15 lawsuits since 2003 against colleges that don’t comply.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/higher-ed/Web-Accessibility-Investigation-Higher-Ed.html

BY TAMARA DIETRICH, Newport News Daily Press

Last December, bad guys using stolen usernames and passwords managed to take over the control systems of three power distribution companies. Company employees watched helplessly as the cyberattackers took over their control panels and, in a matter of minutes, shut down power to some 225,000 customers. Ron Ross of the National Institute of Standards and Technology said, “This is the nature of cyber today. Cyber operates below the radar. And you don’t have to defeat a superpower with cruise missiles or classic kinetic things, anymore. You can defeat a superpower by attacking through cyber.” And it’s a target-rich environment, Ross said. Today, about 6 billion devices from smartphones to tablets to cars to children’s toys are on the so-called internet of things. And every day, several million more are added. The summit to address cyberthreats is the first of its kind in the state, drawing registrants from all levels of government, academia, industry, the military, research and other areas.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/higher-ed/Top-Officials-Call-for-More-Education-and-Jobs-to-Counter-Cyberthreats.html

By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

Recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics outlines the growth of nontraditional learners on college campuses nationwide, eCampus News reports. According to the data, about 74% of all undergraduates enrolled during the 2011-12 academic year possessed at least one characteristic of a nontraditional student, denoted by part-time enrollment, working full-time, identifying as a single caregiver, not having a traditional high school diploma, or financial independence. Nontraditional students are statistically the most likely to enroll in at least one online course.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/the-term-nontraditional-student-is-extinct/427467/

By David Raths, Campus Technology

Georgia State’s chief innovation officer is tackling the flipped classroom, learning analytics, digital literacy and more. Phil Ventimiglia, who became Georgia State University’s chief innovation officer two years ago, said that before he took the job he carefully evaluated the university’s readiness to create such a role. “We want to make sure we are focused on the outcomes, not the inputs,” he said. “Sometimes there has been a focus on devices —let’s put devices in student hands…. We are changing the process to think like a startup and do a series of experiments and prove out the model and then scale it up.” The university has launched a staff innovator program, which includes a self-paced online program for staff and faculty to learn the process of ideation and marketing new ideas. That is being connected to a daylong innovation competition, where winners will receive resources to develop those ideas.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/10/03/creating-a-digitally-enabled-university.aspx

By Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed

Anyone who reads the vast, rapidly expanding literature on innovation in higher education will be struck by the pervasiveness of certain discourses and tropes. Three stand out. The Discourse of Crisis; The Discourse of Disruption; The Discourse of Techno-Transformation. This is the techo booster claim that a revolution in technology – especially the rise of personalized, adaptive courseware — will radically transform education, offering better ways to deliver learning at lower cost with no diminution in quality.

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/rethinking-discourses-higher-education-innovation

by Celia Chen, South China Post

China’s online vocational education industry is about to blossom into a major new consumer sector, thanks to changes wrought by mobile internet, as well as consumer enthusiasm for the new medium, according to a report by Citic Securities. Citic Securities analysts led by Guo Yi said the market for online vocational learning is currently worth about 150 billion yuan, but will balloon to around 585 billion yuan by 2020. “Online education represents a megatrend as the internet and mobile internet infrastructures develop and the user habits change,” Guo said. Among factors fuelling the rapid growth, mainland Chinese are finding online learning can help broaden their employability at a time of increasing competition in the job market

http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2024035/chinas-online-vocational-learning-set-rapid-growth-what-analysts

By Richard Chang, THE Journal

The online tutoring services market in the United States is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 6.15 percent between 2016 and 2020, according to a recent report by market research firm Technavio. Some of the factors that help explain the anticipated growth are: The advent of technology has expanded the market by allowing numerous types of tutors to reach out to a wider student base; Advancements in information and communications technology have led to the emergence of virtual classrooms worldwide; And the rise of virtual classrooms has led to an increase of private, online tutoring service providers as well.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/09/30/online-tutoring-market-expected-to-grow-6.15-percent-over-next-four-years.aspx

by eCampus News

Analysis shows best online schools based on costs, quality and flexibility. AffordableCollegesOnline.org, a site for higher education information and resources, has released its ranking of the Best Online Colleges for 2016. The site analyzed more than a dozen unique data points to identify the colleges and universities providing students with the highest quality and most affordable online learning options today. “We wanted to highlight the schools that offer the best combination of degree program cost, quality, and flexibility,” said Dan Schuessler, CEO and Founder of AffordableCollegesOnline.org. “These schools continue to adopt and scale innovative learning methods to help students realize academic success.”  To qualify for the list, colleges must have regional accreditation and hold public or private not-for-profit standing. Schools earning a spot on the ranking also had at least ten online degree programs and an annual in-state tuition under $25,000. To see the full ranking of Best Online Colleges and the methodology used to rank them, please visit the following page:
http://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/best-colleges-online/.

BY MERIS STANSBURY, eCampus News

NCES data shows that institutions have been scrambling to accommodate massive numbers of nontraditional students. Should higher education rethink what makes a “traditional” student today? Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) on students applying for financial aid highlight the ever-increasing need for colleges and universities to diversify their programs and make more available online education. The data, culled from the most recent student financial aid information (2011-12), and discussed in the NCES brief, “Demographic and Enrollment Characteristics of Nontraditional Undergraduates,” examines prevailing characteristics in enrolling students, and argues that knowledge of these characteristics should further urge institutions to diversify their services.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/research/nontraditional-student-nces/

By Sri Ravipati, Campus Technology

The governor of Rhode Island launched an initiative that aims to save college students $5 million a year by switching out traditional textbooks with openly licensed textbooks. Governor Gina Raimondo introduced the Rhode Island Open Textbook Initiative to combat the steep prices of traditional textbooks, citing that textbook prices “have nearly doubled over the last decade,” according to a news release. The Rhode Island Office of Innovation (InnovateRI) will lead the initiative through its partnership with Adams Library, located at Rhode Island College (RIC). RIC launched a pilot program this school year that so far has saved students $100,000 by switching to an openly licensed textbook for a biology course, according a news release.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/28/rhode-island-open-textbook-initiative-to-save-students-5-million-annually.aspx